In October 1998, my first daughter Monica was born with a very serious brain damage. The typical situation we all know it exists, but some way we always think that these kind of problems only happen to the others and not to yourself. Until the day that it does happen to you, and suddenly everything changes.

In my case everything changed positively! If I now tell that due to her illness Monica is deaf, almost blind, cannot walk and is basically like a small baby (even though she is already 19 years old), it sounds very tough and, of course, it is a big problem in my family. But I also dare to say that now I am much happier than before Monica was born, and this is something to think about…

I have to confess that before the birth of Monica I was a terrible, aggressive executive, only thinking that happiness was all about having loads of money and driving a fast fancy car. Monica was clearly my wake-up call because “thanks” to her circumstances I came into contact with people that help. Doctors, nurses, volunteers, people I deeply admire. People that inspired me to change my attitude from negative to positive. Now instead of an aggressive executive I am a social entrepreneur and very proud to have developed the charitable fundraising platform Teaming that nowadays helps thousands of persons around the globe.

Coming back to Monica, I must say she is much more than only an inspiration to have set up a social project. As a matter of fact, I see Monica as a Master who came on my way in order to help me and to help a lot of other people. She is teaching me so many beautiful things, for example, living and working hard on big dreams without any fear. Monica taught me how to release fear because she went through so many critical situations. Once a doctor before a complicated 10 hours operation told us that there was only a 25% probability for her to survive. When you experience these kind of things, you join her to the operation area, give her the last kiss knowing that you will probably not see her anymore… you suddenly are not worried anymore about “normal” problems (like being fired, losing money, going through a divorce) that normally were like the end of the world for me.

Monica also teaches me how to enjoy every small moment of the day. Because of her limitations, Monica doesn’t know what tomorrow means or what money is, so she just enjoys things like eating an ice cream or touching water. And this way she reminds me every day that this is what we all should do… Some time ago I told my mother (80 years old) that I really changed thanks to my daughter Monica. But my mother smiled and said that thanks to Monica I am finally again her boy when I was 3 or 4 years old.

And Monica doesn’t stop inspiring me. I invite you to visit my new peace project where you can see how together we can start creating a new planet in peace, just like John Lennon imagined it. A world without possessions, countries and religions. How? Hereby, just an example of one of my ideas into actions where you can also see Monica and her little sister.

To summarise this story I would love to share my favourite quote of Buddha: